FREEDOM FLOTILLA Volunteers seized during Israel’s murderous raid of last Sunday night, many of whom were beaten and tortured (see page one) are now being freed in their hundreds as the Zionist regime grasps that not only has its attack on the flotilla failed, but it has succeeded in isolating itself, with even its former Greek and Turkish ruling class allies now up in arms against it.
At least four Turkish flotilla volunteers have been killed and dozens of Greek and other volunteers have been beaten and tortured.
One of the results of this frenzied barbarism is that the Turkish government has publicly committed itself to using its naval forces to see that the next Freedom Flotilla has an escort into Gaza.
It is not so long ago that the Turkish and Israeli military were engaged in joint exercises! Indeed the murderous attack on the two small Greek boats in the flotilla resulted in a joint Greek-Israeli air force military exercise having to be abandoned in mid-flight!
Now the Egyptian ruling class has been forced to open its entrance into Gaza and may well be forced to shut down the Israeli embassy in Cairo or send the ambassador packing.
It is however obvious that the Netanyahu regime will have to go.
But no minor cosmetic change can obscure the fact that there is no place in the modern revolutionary world for a backward racist Zionist entity, which flourished only as long as capitalism and imperialism flourished.
Now in a period of intense capitalist crisis it is becoming something of a burden for even its one time enthusiastic creators and backers.
In fact, the state of Israel has not received such humiliations since it was run out of the Lebanon in the year 2000, and forced to run again after its failed attack on southern Lebanon in 2006.
Disgrace and defeat now loom, where there was once only unlimited arrogance and an assurance of invincibility.
The consciousness has now begun to develop and grow in the world that the Freedom Flotilla crisis has not only exposed the vulnerability of the Zionist regime, but has revealed, in its desperate efforts to halt the flotilla, the beginning of the end for the Zionist regime in Palestine, a regime that has wreaked so much horror and suffering on the people of Palestine.
Having seized hundreds of Freedom Flotilla volunteers and cast them into Beersheba prison, the Zionist regime cannot now get rid of them quickly enough. 565 are due to be deported as soon as possible.
It has been forced to make an ass of itself with its unbelievable tale that its excellently trained and equipped, ruthless, stop at nothing commandos were overcome and beaten senseless within an inch of their lives by a small group of unarmed flotilla volunteers, on whom they had to be forced to open fire. (for the truth see page one)
They have now been forced to say that after years of a savage siege, they have nothing against aid flooding in from Gaza by sea, they only just want a cursory look to see if the boat is carrying arms.
They won’t have too long to wait before putting this to the test since the Irish boat, the Rachel Corrie, is nearing Gaza with a number of ex high UN officials on board, carrying much needed supplies.
Also the European campaign against the siege on Gaza has announced Wednesday that it has secured funds to support three new aid ships to Gaza.
The fleet will be called Freedom 2, and will be ‘much bigger than the first.
An official said: ‘Following the massacre committed by Israeli forces against solidarity activists on board the Freedom Flotilla in international waters, there have been increasing calls by Arab, Islamic, and European countries to launch a new aid fleet much bigger than the first one. This is a clear challenge by the free people of the world in the face of Israel’s arrogance.’
He added the ships will sail in a few weeks’ time from ports in Turkey, whose Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan confirmed his country’s support for the flotilla including accompaniment by a military escort to ensure their safety.
It is clear that now is the time not only to break the siege of Gaza but for the workers of the world to insist that the Palestinian people must have their state, with East Jerusalem as its capital, with the settlements abandoned and all of the refugees returned.
